In the year 2048 the aliens still have not come, yet Dagin Chambers and his elite SETI crew continue their lonely search for extraterrestrial intelligence at the state-of-the-art Mikelson Institute outside of Phoenix, now most fortunate to have copious funding due to the reallocation of resources following the monumental, terrifying changes on Earth during the previous 50 years.
Suddenly, their sophisticated space telescope, Vanguard, detects an object far beyond the known limits of the observable universe. The object is of staggering dimensions and is determined to be approaching Earth at multiples of light speed, and increasing exponentially. In addition, every celestial object it meets is apparently absorbed into its mass, leaving only blackness in its wake.
Dagin's superiors at the Institute assign him and his small crew the task of a dangerous space flight to intercept and interpret this anomaly, though the crew holds little hope of actually accomplishing this mission, especially alive. But as scientists, they must go.
Despite a near-disastrous launch, and the unwelcome discovery of a most mysterious stowaway, the team does succeed in breaching interstellar space--or so they think.
In deep space they encounter two long-lost Earth scientists who aid the team in deciphering a series of confounding messages allegedly emanating from the object, but the man and woman the team finds are not what they seem to be.
Finally, the voyagers face the object who calls itself "Lyrrh" and claims to be what humans call "God." In addition, Lyrrh is intent on destroying all of the known universe, for its own unfathomable reasons.
Can Dagin's team have any hope of reasoning with this horrifying creature and save what is left of the universe? Can the enigmatic stowaway be the key solution to this impossible dilemma?
